


My Senses Tell Me To Stop

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e04 Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-06
Updated: 2009-01-02
Packaged: 2018-10-16 09:09:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10568148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst





	1. Chapter 1

_I can't touch him,_ thought Sam, slightly desperately, _I know I should...pat his shoulder, or hug him, or something, but I can't. I just can't._

Dean gazed into the distance, and Sam could see tears threatening to spill from Dean's eyes, but Sam made himself hold firm. _If I touch him, I'll crack, and then he'll crack, and then we'll end up fucking, right here in the dirt._

So Sam kept his hands resolutely to himself, and tried to find some words to replace a comforting touch, but there were none. What could he say that would convey the emotion behind a hug? Dean didn't meet Sam's eyes, and just kept looking so lost, but Sam hoped he understood; hoped he realised that it wasn't a lack of willing but only fear of a lack of restraint that was keeping Sam from offering physical reassurance.

When Dean did turn towards Sam and look him straight in the eyes, with a tiny swallow, and said, "So tell me, what could you possibly say to make that better?" he just looked so hopeful for a moment and Sam didn't move, couldn't move, could barely even breathe. A single touch right now, and it would go too far - a hand on an arm would lead to a kiss, would lead to hands wandering under clothes, would lead to...He'd sworn when he'd left for Stanford that he'd never touch his brother like that again.

It wasn't right and it wasn't normal and it did neither of them any favours. It might make Dean feel better now, but they both knew where it ended - guilt and shame and so much bitterness between them that it became a chasm neither could reach across. By the time Sam had left, they'd barely been able to look at each other without a shiver of horror at what they were doing. Not that that had stopped them, of course. It was like a drug - one touch, one kiss and that was it, they couldn't stop. They couldn't keep away from each other and couldn't stop touching, couldn't stop yearning for the forbidden rush of adrenaline and lust.

Sam had gone cold turkey and it had nearly killed him. Every moment of his first semester had been torture. It had nearly driven him back to Dean's side, back to where he could reach out and quench his thirst for the taste of Dean's skin and the feel of Dean's hands running over his body. He'd stuck it out though, he'd managed to let Dean go and he wasn't giving that up now. He wasn't going to return to that dark and dirty place where the line between brothers and lovers blurred and disappeared until neither of them knew where they stood or who they were.

He could live without offering a comforting touch now if it meant that they would still be able to live and work together in the future without a shadow of sick wrongness between them.

After a couple of minutes, Dean ducked his head, cleared his throat and stood up. He got back in the car without saying anything, and then Sam was the one just staring out at nothing, trying to force all his emotions back down so that he could spend the necessary hours in the car with Dean without stepping over the line they'd both been so careful to draw.

It took him a few minutes to stop feeling so on-edge and desperate, and when he got back in the car, Dean started the engine and took off immediately. He didn't say anything, but Sam could feel the atmosphere lightening imperceptibly. It felt like the start of getting themselves back on track, as if just having the words spoken out loud was enough to make Dean feel better, to start the healing process.

 _Thank god I didn't fuck it up by touching him_ , thought Sam, relaxing back into his seat. _That's the very last thing either of us need._

Dean put his foot down harder on the gas as they passed a mile marker telling them that the state line was in 50 miles. Sam leant his head against the car window and watched the trees blur together as they passed by. _We're going to be okay_ , he thought fiercely, and for the first time since Dad's death, he believed it.

 


	2. Better Not Touch

Sam wasn't surprised when Dean came out of their motel room to find him after about half an hour - Dean wasn't comfortable with letting Sam out of his sight for longer than that just yet. He didn't say anything, though, just sat down on the bench next to Sam without a word.

They sat in silence, both of them lost in their own thoughts and trying to ignore the awkward mix of guilt and shame which swirled in the air between them. Sam could already feel the distance growing between them as they both tried to come to terms with the memories still hovering over them like a black cloud, tainting everything that they were to each other. Sam couldn't even bring himself to look at Dean, too afraid of what his subconscious might throw at him.

This was just what he had been afraid of, why he'd held back from getting too close to Dean, physically, for so long. 

"I can't do this again," he said eventually, breaking the silence that almost seemed to have grown into a living thing around them. "I've nowhere to run this time," he added in a soft voice, half-hoping that Dean wouldn't hear him. It was the first time he'd acknowledged out loud that going to Stanford had been as much about running away from this, from the way this thing had knotted them up until it tainted every part of their relationship, as it had been about finding a life outside hunting.

Dean just nodded, staring out across the motel parking lot, his hands gripping the edge of the bench as if he was afraid of falling off.

"It's so fucked up," said Sam. He felt on-edge and desperate and so damn close to just ignoring everything he was saying, and reaching over to pull Dean's mouth against his own. "Things can't go back to how they were before. You're all I've got, I'm not...we can't..." he trailed off, unable to fit words to the roiling sea of emotion in the pit of his stomach.

Dean cleared his throat. "I know," he said quietly, sounding as weary as Sam felt.

Sam sighed and leaned his head back against the wall.

****

It'd been a simple mistake - harmless, if they'd been any other pair of brothers. If they were normal brothers. They'd both been exhausted from the events of the last few days, but still too high on adrenalin to really rest, especially with all the emotion of finally, _finally_ , killing The Demon, and seeing their father's spirit smiling like that, looking so proud and happy in a way that Sam could never remember from when he was alive. They'd gotten a motel room as near to the graveyard as they could, not willing to face the drive back to Bobby's just yet.

Sam had collapsed onto one of the beds as soon as they were inside, his mind still reeling from _I was dead_ and _one year_ , and Dean sat down next to him - maybe a bit closer than they usually risked, but since Sam had woken up, ( _come back to life, god I was dead_ ) he'd been hovering and Sam couldn't really blame him. He could only imagine what it must have been like for Dean to see him dead.

Dean had offered him the first shower after a couple of minutes silence, and slapped Sam's leg when he couldn't quite raise the energy to move, and that was when it had all gone wrong. Maybe he'd been aiming for Sam's knee, which would have been an acceptable brotherly gesture, but it landed higher than that - maybe a bit too high, and he'd left it there afterwards, warmth seeping through Sam's jeans and stirring a reaction in parts he was trying to keep shut down.

With all the adrenalin and emotions flying through their bloodstreams, that was enough to tip them over the edge, and the next thing Sam remembered clearly was Dean's hand working into his boxers while Sam tried to pull off all Dean's shirts at once.

The sex had been fast, desperate and frantic, Dean's hands roaming all over Sam's skin and Sam's mouth biting along Dean's collarbone. Sam had come groaning Dean's name and Dean had followed a moment later, one hand fisted tightly in Sam's hair.

They'd stayed frozen in place for the count of two heartbeats, then Sam had rolled away, pulled his clothes back on and got the hell away from the smell of sex and the sound of Dean's breathing still coming down. Dean didn't say anything, just watched with heavy eyes as Sam shut the door behind himself.

****

Sam could feel all the walls they'd built to hide this away from themselves crashing down as they sat listening to the crickets, leaving them with no way to avoid the truth of it, burning beneath everything they were. He wasn't sure they'd ever be able to rebuild them.

Dean shifted uncomfortably next to him. "It was just a freak thing. It won't happen again."

Sam wished he could believe him, but it's not as if they didn't both know how this ended last time. He stood up. "We won't let it," he said fiercely, trying to sound as if he thought they had any control over it.

Dean didn't reply as Sam went back inside the room, and it was a long time before he followed Sam inside. Sam lay quiet in the dark and pretended to be sleep.

****

They did what they could to avoid each other after that, despite their close living conditions. Sam took to going to get breakfast before Dean was even awake, walking slowly so that Dean was up and dressed by the time he got back. Dean stayed out late in bars, and disappeared for hours with every woman that could be persuaded by his flashing smile and practised words. They started to split up more while they were hunting, something they both knew their father would have disapproved of.

Sam couldn't help being aware of Dean's time running out and a large part of him wanted to spend every moment he could with Dean and damn the consequences. The few nights Dean did stay in, though, proved that Sam was not to be trusted around his brother. He couldn't help watching Dean in a way he knew crossed the line that they were desperately trying to re-establish, the one between 'brothers' and 'fucked up.'

And Dean looked back. After the first time Sam stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a towel to find Dean there, eyes raking over Sam's chest with a gaze so hot that Sam was sure it burnt his skin, they both started to take their clothes into the bathroom with them.

It didn't make it go away though - nothing they did seemed to stop this thing, or even get them back to the careful balance they had after Sam came back from Stanford, when they were both able to pretend it was just a weird teenage thing. Every touch now was lingering, every time their eyes met it threatened to turn into something more, and Sam could feel it all building up, like a wall of water behind a dam with crumbling foundations.

****

It only came to a head when Dean had five and a half months to go, when Sam was feeling the deadline rushing towards him. _Half a year gone, and nothing to show for it_. Dean was acting as if it was no big deal, as if the only thing to worry about was packing as much alcohol and sex and rock music into the time he had left. 

Sam knew his brother, though, knew what it meant when he spent his spare moments leaning over the Impala's engine even though there was nothing wrong with it, knew what it meant when he woke up in the night to find Dean already awake, watching him. Dean was freaking out, and Sam couldn't find a way to save him, and all this stupid sex crap was just getting worse, and sometimes it felt as if the whole world was collapsing in on Sam's brain, squashing all his thoughts together under the pressure of it all until thinking was an impossibility and even breathing was hard.

He'd exhausted another possibility, discarded another useless book, and was just sitting on his bed wondering where he should look next when Dean came back into the room, jangling his keys and grinning with a casual cheerfulness that didn't quite hide the tired, stretched look in his eyes.

His shirt was partially unbuttoned, and Sam caught a glimpse of red marks along his collarbone, standing out against his pale skin. His treacherous mind provided him with a sudden snapshot of what it had been like to be the one to put marks like that on Dean, and he had to look away quickly.

From the tone of Dean's quiet sigh, the significance of his flush hadn't gone unnoticed, and Sam bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, and kept his eyes on the wall.

"Have a good time?" he asked, trying to get them back onto normal ground, and trusting Dean to do his bit to by ignoring Sam's momentary lapse.

"Yeah," said Dean, but the grin had gone from his voice. Instead, he sounded every inch as tired as Sam knew he was, and Sam looked up in surprise. Dean was looking at him as if trying to solve a particularly difficult math problem just after his favourite dog had died. After a moment, he sat down on the bed next to Sam, just too close, so that Sam had to resist the simultaneous temptations to shift back to a safe distance and to pull him closer.

"I don't want my last year to go like this," said Dean, so quietly that Sam wasn't even sure he'd heard him for a moment.

"What?" he asked stupidly, but he had a bad feeling he already knew where this was going to go.

Dean didn't turn to look at him, choosing instead to stare at the same wall Sam had already memorised. "I get that you don't want it to happen again, but..." he paused for an infinitely long moment. "My time's running out, Sammy. I don't want to waste it on all this..." He waved a vague hand at the space between them, and Sam knew it meant _sexual tension_ and _avoiding each other_ and _emo crap_.

He ducked his head, not able to meet Dean's gaze, or even to see his face from the corner of his eye. "Sorry," he said, gruffly. "I've been trying to...to make it go away."

Dean snorted. "I know, dude," he said. "You've been trying for years. Doesn't look like it's working."

Sam felt something deep inside twist at that, because it was true, and he couldn't see an end to this that wasn't one of them dying, and it was going to fuck everything up.

"Look," said Dean after a long moment. "Maybe...maybe we just need to realise that. That it's not going anywhere, and we can't change it, and...it just is, dude. Maybe if, if it stops being something to stress over, it won't be such a big deal, and we can just...just get on with everything else."

"What?" asked Sam dumbly.

Dean's hand curled into a fist where it was lying on his knee. "We both know we're thinking it," he said, gruffly. "Just...when something like that happens," he gestured at the doorway, "we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it."

Sam turned that idea over in his mind. Not giving in to this thing, but maybe just letting it be instead of fighting against it. It felt like the first step on a slippery slope, but he thought about only having five and a half months, and about the way Dean sometimes looked at Sam as if he was still seeing his corpse, and he found himself nodding. "Yeah," he said, his throat dry. "Yeah, okay man."

"Great," said Dean, springing up. "I'm gonna have a shower." He'd disappeared into the bathroom before Sam had had time to even contemplate the enormity of that decision.

****

It got both easier and harder after that. Easier, because whenever he looked up to find Dean staring at the way he was rolling his pen between his fingers while reading some obscure demonology text, he didn't have to duck his head and pretend it hadn't happened, or avoid meeting Dean's eyes for fear of the heat he wouldn't be able to deny in them. Instead, he just took a deep breath and put the pen down, knocking Dean out of whatever moment he'd been having.

Harder, because whenever he found himself caught on the freckles scattered across Dean's body, wondering what they would taste like, he'd come back to himself only to find Dean looking at him as if he knew exactly what he was thinking, as if he was seeing the same thing. Looking away from his knowing gaze became harder and harder as time passed.

They were in a bar, downing shots of something vaguely sticky that Dean had decreed the only way to celebrate another exorcised demon. Dean downed his in one go, then flicking his tongue out to lick the taste off his lips. Sam couldn't look away, transfixed with the image of what else that tongue, those lips could do.

"Take your shot like a man," said Dean, interrupting Sam's mental images, and Sam blinked himself back to reality. He picked up his shot, ready to push the whole moment away, but Dean was smirking at him smugly, and just as Sam downed the shot, he ran his tongue slowly over his lower lip and then bit at it.

Sam choked alcohol all over the bar, feeling it burn in his throat and up his nose. Dean laughed loud enough for the whole bar to hear him, and Sam felt his eyes narrow. Two could play that game.

****

The next day, for the first time in months, Sam didn't take his clothes with him into the bathroom. Instead he came out wearing the smallest towel he could find that actually went round his hips. The double-take Dean gave when he looked up was well worth the strange feeling of vulnerability that came from wearing so little in front of Dean after so long trying to hide from him.

Dean stood up, and for a heart-stopping moment Sam thought he'd pushed too far, and Dean was going to push him up against the wall, but instead Dean grabbed his jacket.

“Gonna get coffee,” he announced, looking at the wall behind Sam rather than directly at him, and then fled the room. Sam felt a thrill of victory, but a loud voice in the back of his mind was telling him that this was only going to end badly. Sam tried to ignore it, telling himself that this had just been a one off thing to get Dean back and when Dean got back, everything would go back to how it had been.

Somehow, he couldn't make himself believe it.

****

Two days later, Dean wore a pair of jeans that were so tight they might as well have been painted on. Every curve of his ass, every line of his thigh muscles, every shift of his body as he walked was highlighted beneath them. Sam spent the day trying to keep his eyes fixed firmly elsewhere and failing, and had to get himself off in the diner washroom at lunch, and then again in the motel bathroom as soon as they checked in.

When he came out, Dean was lounging back on his bed, grinning smugly, and apparently unconcerned by the fact that the jeans did nothing to hide his half-hard state. Sam almost turned right around and went back into the bathroom for another session, but instead he took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on the wall above Dean's head.

“You want to get some dinner?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Dean, getting up, and Sam headed for the door. The last thing he needed was to follow Dean's ass in those jeans out of the room.

After dinner, Dean insisted they went to a bar. Sam was too sick and tired of everything to protest. It all seemed to just keep pressing down on him, cluttering up his mind so that whatever direction his thoughts took, he ended up stressed - Dean's rapidly decreasing timeline, the voice in the back of his head that didn't understand why it would be such a bad idea to get Dean out of those ridiculous jeans and naked in bed, the fact that Sam knew whatever he did in retaliation was only going to make the whole thing escalate and get worse to control. He stuck to only having a couple of beers though, while Dean did his best to drink the bar empty.

“C'mon, Sammy,” he said, when the bartender warned them that he'd be shutting up in ten minutes. “Have a couple of shots with me before we go back.”

“No, thanks,” said Sam, setting the empty beer bottle he'd been cradling for the last half an hour down. “Let's just go back to the room. Get you into bed before you pass out.”

Dean grinned at him brightly, but with a sharp edge, as if he knew he was crossing a line. “You get me into bed, I guarantee I won't pass out,” he said with a smirk.

Sam gritted his teeth and looked away, clenching his fists against the image of Dean spread out on a bed like this, all drunk and open and wanting. “Definitely time to go,” he said, and stood up. He didn't look back as he left the bar, unwilling to find out what the expression on Dean's face was.

Outside, he could hear Dean's footsteps just behind him, but Dean didn't speed up to walk beside him. Instead, he just followed Sam all the way back to the motel in silence. Sam tried to ignore the sense of his presence just behind his shoulder, and pushed down the temptation to take Dean up on his offer. Getting himself into the right mindset to just go to bed once they got back to the room took most of the walk, but he just about managed it by concentrating hard on the details of the case they were driving towards.

He let Dean have the bathroom first, on the theory that the sooner he got out of those ridiculous jeans and into bed, under covers where Sam didn't have to constantly fight the temptation to reach out and feel if his ass was as firm as he remembered, the better.

When Sam came out of the bathroom though, Dean wasn't under the blankets, he was just sitting on his bed. He'd taken off the jeans and his shirts and for a moment Sam's eyes skittered over his chest, half-lit in the lamplight.

“Jesus,” he said, tearing his eyes away, and marching over to his own bed. “I get it, okay? You've won. Now put some damned clothes on.”

“I haven't won,” said Dean, not moving. “Neither of us have. Or will, at this rate.”

“What?” asked Sam in confusion. It was late and he was horny and he wasn't in the mood for Dean's drunken rambling. “Just go to bed, Dean.”

Dean shook his head tiredly. “I don't know why you've got to make it so hard,” he said quietly. “It could be so easy.”

That made Sam stop still, midway through the motion of pulling back his blankets. “Easy like it was when we were younger?” he asked in a bitter voice.

“We're not kids any more, Sam,” Dean pointed out, “even if you still act like one sometimes. We're both grown up enough to know what we're doing, and to make it work.”

Sam felt frozen to the spot. He'd never thought for a moment that Dean was doing anything other than Sam was with this thing – fighting it for all he was worth. “Dean,” he said in a choked voice. “We _can't_ ”

Dean made a disgusted noise. “Well, we can't go on like this either,” he said. “You can't tell me all this denial and shit is making you happy.”

Sam glared at him. “We don't have a choice,” he gritted out, and turned his back on Dean and the conversation, getting into bed.

“There's always a choice, Sammy,” said Dean, getting up. He sat down on the edge of Sam's bed, and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam glared at him, but couldn't seem to move away. Dean's hand felt like a brand, even through Sam's t-shirt, and the air pressed in on Sam, trapping him underneath Dean's gaze. 

“C'mon, Sammy,” Dean said in a half-whisper, moving closer.

Sam could feel himself giving way, weakening beneath the emotions that always rose up when Dean was this near. “It's wrong,” he tried, weakly.

“Only person condemning us is you,” said Dean, his face hovering inches above Sam's, their mouths so close that Sam could feel their breath mingling.

“And God,” he reminded Dean, locking his muscles against the need to pull Dean down against him.

Dean made a disgusted noise. “I'm going to Hell anyway,” he reminded Sam, and Sam felt a black wave rise up in his throat at the reminder. “And you'll have plenty of time to square it with him once I'm gone – say a million rosaries or whatever.”

Sam grabbed at Dean's arm. “I'm going to save you,” he said, still trying to tell himself that they weren't going to do this, but it was too late. It had been too late once Dean sat down and they both knew it. Holding Dean's arm, feeling the warmth of his smooth skin and the tension in his biceps was the last straw, and Sam pulled Dean down the final couple of inches until their mouths were sealed together. Dean groaned, deep in his throat, and Sam couldn't stop himself from answering in kind, opening his mouth to Dean's tongue.

It all felt too good, too perfect, just like it always had before, at least until the regret and shame kicked in, and Sam couldn't stop himself from pulling Dean fully on to the bed, dragging their bodies together. _Only a few months left,_ whispered the part of him that had never been able to understand why this was such a bad idea, and had just been waiting patiently for the rest of Sam to catch up. Dean pushed his thigh between Sam's legs and ground his erection down, catching Sam's moan of reaction in his mouth, his tongue taking Sam apart from the inside out.

“See how easy this is when you just let it happen?” he whispered against Sam's lips, but didn't give Sam a chance to reply. Sam let everything fall away, everything except the feel of Dean's skin against his, the hard line of his body pressing down, his fingers running over Sam, lingering in all the places that drove Sam wild. He held tight to his brother and concentrated on this instant, this sensation, this emotion – everything else could wait until later.

Dean pulled Sam's t-shirt off and threw it behind him, running his hands up and down Sam's chest, tracing the lines of his ribs, flicking gently over his nipples and making him gasp. Sam let his eyes fall shut so that the touch of Dean's fingers was all his mind was concentrating on and his skin tingled as Dean traced down his stomach, skirting his belly button before descending to the waistband of his underwear. He shifted his weight, pushing his hips upwards in anticipation of Dean taking them off, and their erections ground together again.

“Fuck,” muttered Dean, and Sam's eyes flew open again. Dean was staring down at him with a faint frown of confusion, as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, and Sam wondered if this had been easier than he was expecting. 

_Probably wondering when his baby brother became such an easy lay_ , but the thought was abruptly cut off when Dean leaned forward and sucked Sam's left nipple hard into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it and running his teeth gently over it. Sam blindly reached out for his brother, grabbing at his shoulders and holding on tightly. He thrust up again, against Dean's thigh, wishing that the barrier of their underwear was already long gone. Dean moved his mouth over to Sam's other nipple, and Sam let go of his shoulders in order to run his hands down to Dean's boxers and slide his fingers beneath them, hoping that it was enough of a hint to get Dean moving.

Dean ignored him, hands grasping at Sam's waist as his mouth continued its assault on his nipples then trailed up to Sam's neck, sucking hard at his pulse point. Sam let his fingers sink deeper into the flesh of Dean's ass, pulling him closer and tried to ignore the harsh, desperate panting that was coming from his mouth.

Dean was still only teasing and Sam needed more, much more, and he needed it now. He pushed Dean off him and Dean moved backwards immediately, almost as if he'd been expecting it. Sam ignored the part of him that pointed out that Dean probably thought Sam was freaking out and followed Dean, sitting up so that he could get at Dean's boxers properly and drag them down. 

Dean caught on quick and shifted to kick them off before tearing Sam's underwear off. He froze for half a second, but Sam was done with beating around the bush and grabbed Dean's hips as he lay back down, pulling their erections together as he thrust upwards. Dean made a noise that should be illegal and kissed Sam again, riding down to slide their cocks together, and the friction was amazing and not enough, all at the same time.

 

“Dean,” Sam groaned and Dean seemed to know exactly what he wanted just from the tone of his voice, because he pulled away and moved down the bed until his mouth was level with Sam's cock. Sam propped himself up on his elbows to watch, his heart in his throat at just the thought of what Dean was going to do.

Dean took a firm grip on Sam's hips, smoothing his thumbs over the hard line of bone on either side, then bent his head to bite gently at one of them. Sam twitched upwards, pulling against Dean's grip, and wondered if Dean would ever stop teasing and just get on with it. His cock was so hard that it felt like it was going to burst and when Dean finally relented enough to lick a sloppy trail up it, he thought for a moment he was going to come right there and then and this whole thing would be over just that quickly.

He held it in though, griping hard at the sheets as Dean swirled his tongue around the head of Sam's cock, still teasing but starting to get more serious. Sam wished he'd hurry the hell up already before he went insane, then Dean's mouth sealed over the end of his dick, and he sucked so hard that Sam saw sparks and the muscles in his arms gave out, collapsing him back against the bed.

It suddenly seemed the teasing was over, as if someone had flicked a switch in Dean's head from 'torment your brother' to 'suck his brains out,' and there was no holding him back. He took Sam's cock as deep into his throat as he could, fingers digging deep into Sam's hips as he held him down against his automatic reaction to thrust upwards into the tight, wet heat. Sam lay back, his head spinning with the pleasure and his eyes squeezed tightly shut as his hands grasped uselessly at the sheets, at himself, at Dean's shoulders, moving ceaselessly and unable to settle anywhere for longer than a split second.

When he came it was like the end of everything and the beginning of the universe all at the same time, white light drowning out everything else in his mind until every doubt, every feeling of shame, every quiet whisper that this was his _brother_ and it was so very, very wrong, was drowned out for the first time since he was fifteen.

He was still breathing through the aftershocks, limbs heavy and shaking, when Dean let go of him and stretched himself back out on top of Sam, fitting his cock against the curve of Sam's hip and thrusting down as hard as he could, rubbing himself off almost frantically. His breathing was ragged and interspersed with grunts and bitten off cursewords, his face pressed into Sam's neck so that Sam could feel the sting of hot breath on his skin.

Sam pulled himself together enough to grab at Dean's ass again, pushing his thigh up to meet Dean's thrusts while his hands traced over the flexing muscles of Dean's buttocks. That was enough to send Dean over the edge, biting hard down at Sam's shoulder as he spilled hot come between them.

Dean's forehead was still pressed to Sam's collarbone, his breathing only just settling down, when all the reasons why they shouldn't do this came flooding back to Sam. He must have tensed or given some other sign, because Dean made an unhappy noise in his throat and grabbed on to him tight.

“Dude,” he muttered into Sam's shoulder. “Just quit thinking so damned hard about this. At least until tomorrow.”

He sounded like a ten year old who was afraid his favourite toy was going to be taken away, and the idea of trying to move him, of slipping away again and spending the rest of the night stressing about this, was just so unwelcome that Sam sighed and forcibly relaxed himself back against the mattress. He felt Dean smile against his skin and resolutely shut his eyes against the affection it stirred in him.

****

When Sam woke up, Dean was still fast asleep beside him, his hand resting lightly on Sam's arm. Sam thought back to the night before, and shut his eyes against how much he wanted it to happen again. He waited for the shame to rise up in him - _I had sex with my brother, with someone related to me_ \- but it only seemed to be a faint shadow of the choking emotion he was used to. _Only person condemning us is you,_ said the memory of Dean's voice and Sam sat up to shake it away.

It wasn't about _condemning_ , it was about the way things had been when he'd left for Stanford. He couldn't bear to go back to that now, all that guilt and shame between them, eating them both up until the only thing they saw when they looked at each other was how wrong this was, and how they couldn't stop doing it.

He watched the shape the sunlight made when it shone through the curtains onto the wall, and tried to bring himself to get up and have a shower. He should wash all the traces of last night away before Dean woke up so that they could begin the process of rebuilding the walls between them and this, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to move. The curtains waved gently in the breeze, and the pattern of the sunlight changed in response.

 _We can't go on like this,_ Dean had said last night. Would he even play along if Sam did try to push this all away again? Sam glanced down at Dean then, unable to keep his eyes away any longer. Dean wasn't asleep, although he hadn't moved his position at all. His eyes were open, and he was watching Sam with an unusually serious expression.

“You freaking out?” he asked, in a quiet voice.

“Not as much as I should be,” admitted Sam.

Dean grinned at him, brighter than the sun coming through the curtains. He reached out and grabbed Sam's wrist possessively. “Don't you think it's time you quit running from this?”

Sam sighed, and looked away. “What if...what if it ends up like before?” he asked.

“What if it doesn't?” countered Dean. Sam didn't have an answer to that, and he looked back at the sunlight on the wall, torn between getting out of bed and lying back down.

 _His deal's up in only a few months,_ whispered the voice in the back of his head that just wanted to feel Dean's sleep-warmed body against his, at the same time as Dean's grip tightened on his wrist. Sam gave in with a sigh, letting his body drape over Dean's and fitting their hips together.

“Knew you couldn't resist me,” said Dean smugly, and Sam kissed him just to shut him up. It seemed so simple to just let all the guilt dissolve in the morning sun, and Sam realised suddenly that Dean was right - this could be easy. Then one of Dean's hands knotted itself in his hair, holding him close, and Sam just stopped thinking completely.


End file.
